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Sunday, April 14, 2013

For many people living with autism, it takes years to carve a place in life where they can thrive.

But for Matt Kaiser (pictured), it took more than three decades for the diagnosis to come. Finding his niche was a much simpler journey.

"I've found that when I perform on stage, I'm a different person than
when I'm not performing," said Kaiser, who has found his passion as a
comedian since being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a type of autism.
"When I'm not performing, I tend to be a little bit off to the side and
to myself, and that's kind of gotten me in trouble. … A lot of people
were misconceiving me in every way possible. Being in the dark for 35
years, I didn't know why."

It wasn't discovered that Kaiser, 39, had Asperger syndrome until he
was 35. Since then, the Towson University graduate has honed his comedic
skills and recently began teaching them to others in a new program at
Towson's Hussman Center for Adults with Autism. His goal is to open
doors of self-discovery for others who live with autism.

Autism is a developmental disorder that appears early in life, and
affects the brain's normal development of social and communication
skills. The effects of autism are different for each person with it.
Though symptoms can include cognitive and physical impairments, people
living with autism also typically excel at something.

The comedy program, which began in March, has eight registered
participants and meets once a week in the center's space at the newly
renovated Towson City Center. There, too, the Catonsville resident is
far from the man who used to stand on the periphery.

"I'm just a different person when I'm performing — same goes with
when I'm conducting a class or a workshop like this," he said. "I'm, in
essence, in performance mode."

On Tuesday, April 9, the third meeting of the workshop, Kaiser worked
with participants, many of whom are in their 20s, along with university
student mentors on improvisation games using props. The participants
brought their own props and acted out scenes with creative uses for
each.

Before the session started, the participants stood apart from each
other and didn't interact much. But as the program progressed,
connections were made and smiles grew.

Since the program began, Rhonda Greenhaw, director of the Hussman
Center, said she's seen the participants open up and connect with their
"artistic selves."

"For so many of the participants, for their whole life they've been
told to do things differently," Greenhaw said. "Initially, they feel
like … they can't even connect" to what they were watching.

"They can't even connect to something unique and original. They want
somebody to tell them, 'What should I do?' Just by providing them with a
safe and supportive environment, we've really seen people break out of
that, to really connect with it," she said.

As she has seen with participants in the center's other programs, it
has taken a while for some of them to open up in a more structured
setting.

"A lot of our participants come ... to our programs with this
mistrust and this sense that, "Oh, I'm going to come to another place
and be told that I need to change, and how much work I need to do and
how many deficits I have.' " Greenhaw said. "This is very different.
This is all about your strengths and connecting to yourself and using
those things to really come into your own, and I think that's really
meaningful."

That they're taking their cues from someone who, despite not being
diagnosed with autism until his mid-30s, can relate to them and shares
their experiences of feeling different from those around them.

'Everything clicking into place'

Kaiser found his niche while in the acting program at Towson
University, which he graduated from in 2010. He said some aspects of the
program weren't clicking for him, but then an instructor who saw him
thrive in mime and movement classes suggested he take a techniques in
comedy class.

"Of course, I did, and suddenly everything was clicking into place," Kaiser said.

Now, his repertoire includes the mime, physical comedy, improv,
standup and prop work he learned in that class. He's taken three classes
at the famed Second City Improv Theater in Chicago, and hones his craft
at comedy shows and workshops in the Baltimore/Washington area.

He got plenty of laughs from the participants on Tuesday. After
teaching them to use the props, he put on his own prop routine using a
collapsible neon yellow tube. He flopped around the floor and used the
tube as an elephant trunk, inchworm, a snorkel and Groucho Marx' cigar.
He invited participants to show their own ideas during his display.

During the participant's prop routines, he was empathetic and
supportive, encouraging applause and pointing out their particularly
clever uses of the items.

He participated with the previous incarnation of the Adults with
Autism program on campus, before it moved to Towson City Center. After
attending a couple of events, he and Greenhaw established a program for
him to teach his passion to others on the autism spectrum.

He worked with his job coach, Susan Howarth, on a proposal for a
weekly program, and although all parties were apprehensive before the
first class, Kaiser was a natural teacher and Howarth has been thrilled
to see him thrive in the setting.

"One of the reasons I think he wanted to do this was he wanted to
help other autistic people learn other communication modes where they're
comfortable," she said. "For me to watch him in this situation — it's
just so cool."

About Me

I am full-time Mass Communication faculty at Towson University in Maryland and adjunct faculty in the City University of New York (CUNY) Master's in Disability Studies program.
I research media and disability issues and wrote a 2010 book on the subject: Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, published by Advocado Press.
The media have real power to define what the public knows about disability and that's what I research.